A transfer printing method is a method of directly printing pictures, characters, and the like on surfaces of various products, whereby a printed picture on a surface of a medium such as a film sheet is transferred to a product surface.
A known example of a conventional transfer printing method includes a first step of printing a UV ink image on a flat original sheet by using inkjet printing with a UV ink, a second step of irradiating the UV ink image with UV or an electron beam to bring the UV ink image to a semi-dry state while the UV ink image is being printed or immediately after the UV ink image is printed, a third step of transferring the semi-dry UV ink image to an elastic blanket surface, a fourth step of offset printing the transferred UV ink image from the elastic blanket to a printing object, and a step of drying and fixing the UV ink image formed by the offset printing (see PTL 1).